Volume 41, Issue 4

Morals and moral orientations are a prominent subject in sociological discourse and research; how our “conscience” functions and expresses itself in specific everyday situations, however, is a topic rarely addressed by sociologists. Compared to more narrowly defined concepts of self-control or moral consciousness the concept of conscience covers a broader scope of meanings which emerge from the complex interplay between moral insights and feelings, or from interconnections between sentiment, interpretation and behavior. In exploring the concept of conscience sociologically we first draw upon system-theoretical considerations as advanced by Niklas Luhmann. We then contrast Luhmann’s assumptions about specific functions of morals and conscience with the cognitive approach to analyzing the development of moral consciousness and the minimalistic concept of universally valid moral rules associated with it. The type of morals thus conceptualized poses unanswered questions of motivation. Partial solutions are offered by Kant’s ideas about moral feelings and Randall Collins’ concept of interaction rituals. The “either-or” position, viz. reason vs. feelings in the constitution of moral insight and moral commitment, can be overcome with Hans Joas’ theses concerning the genesis of values and value-commitment. Based on Joas’ ideas, we propose conceiving of “conscience” as a way of articulating moral experiences shaped by the dynamic interplay of (possibly) intense feelings, reflexive thinking, and culture- based interpretations.

This article analyzes the role that expectations about particularistic expectations of the political public play in the relationship between political actors and voters. It questions the systems-theoretical assumption that political elections and public communication about politics create an unknown public and that parties therefore can attract voters only with the help of relatively universalistic programs. Beyond the universalism induced by the mass media parties and politicians utilize opportunities to distinguish segments of the political public in attempts to attract votes by appealing to particularistic expectations. This is possible without recourse to the politically relevant general public when administrative decision-making and individual voting behavior are linked by clientelism and/or by local embeddedness in electoral districts. These findings cast some doubt on the centrality of the binary code “government/opposition” as a criterion for the differentiation of the political system. The article proposes a perspective that assumes variable weight for this distinction in relation to the more general difference between superior and inferior power in political communication and that tries to identify empirical variants of political differentiation on this basis.

It is a well-known finding that the “classic” labor migrants and their descendants in Germany have fewer employment chances than native Germans. Less studied, however, are changes over time and structural factors in the labor market as they are represented by different class positions. Analyses of the Scientific Use Files of the German Microcensus 1976 and 2008 indicate that migrants from the former “recruitment countries” continue to be over-represented in lower-class positions. However, the second generation of migrants is generally more successful in economic terms than the first generation. In the social space of class positions, access to self-employment and to lower technical positions turn out to be generally open, while opportunities for migrants to enter intermediate (white-collar) occupations and salaried service class positions (salariat) continue to be underrepresented. For 2008, we no longer find evidence of a general disadvantage of migrants of Turkish origin.

Using a search-theoretical model proposed by Montgomery (1992), we analyze the effects of information flow via social networks (friends, relatives, and other personal contacts) on monetary and non-monetary labor market outcomes. Propensity score matching on survey data from low-status unemployed respondents is used to identify causal effects. The analysis takes into account unobserved heterogeneity by applying Rosenbaum bounds. We show that the standard approach to investigating labor market outcomes in terms of how jobs are found is misleading. As an alternative, we propose focusing comparative analyses of labor market outcomes on how individuals search for jobs and, more particularly, on whether they search for jobs via social networks. Using this approach we find no evidence for causal effects on monetary outcomes such as wages and wage satisfaction. We also find no effects for non-monetary outcomes like job satisfaction. Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz analysiert den Einfluss der Informationsübertragung über soziale Netzwerke (Freunde, Verwandte und andere persönliche Kontakte) auf monetäre und nicht-monetäre Arbeitsmarkterträge. Die theoretische Basis der Analyse ist ein von Montgomery (1992) vorgeschlagenes suchtheoretisches Modell. Um kausale Effekte zu identifizieren, verwenden wir Propensity-Score-Matching. Unbeobachtete Heterogenität wird mit Hilfe von Rosenbaum- Bounds in der Analyse berücksichtigt. Als Datenbasis dient uns eine Befragung von geringqualifizierten und/oder Langzeitarbeitslosen. Im Zuge der Analyse stellt sich die weit verbreitete Vorgehensweise als irreführend heraus, den Einfluss sozialer Netzwerke auf der Basis eines Vergleichs verschiedener Wege zu identifizieren, auf denen Arbeitsplätze gefunden werde. Stattdessen schlagen wir vor, Personengruppen miteinander zu vergleichen, die mit bzw. ohne Einbindung sozialer Kontakte nach Arbeit gesucht haben. Aus einer solchen Analyse ergeben sich keinerlei Hinweise darauf, dass die Suche über soziale Netzwerke kausale Effekte auf monetäre Erträge wie den Lohn oder die Lohnzufriedenheit oder nichtmonetäre Aspekte wie die Jobzufriedenheit hat.